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Strom
Strom and the Awakening With each rise and setting of that great incandescent orb in the sky my mind falters. I remember that I had a wife and a daughter. My wife had worn long yellow dresses in the summer and my daughter ran in the fields at sunset. Yet I don’t remember their faces or their names. I remember the warmth of my wife’s body against mine and I remember the laughter of my child but with each accursed day I feel only colder and the voice of my little girl only grows ever fainter. I remember the pain of the day when my closest friend died. I remember finding him dead with his own hand the culprit. And yet I don’t know his name or his face; only the faraway longing in his dimmed and emerald gaze. '' ''And the greatest question of them all: What is my name? When your past has no substance and your future is without a foundation, only then will you understand the fleeting yet invaluable nature of the present. Even if it’s only for a moment, it’s all you have that can be grasped before all the world slips beyond your fingers. '' ''Desperately, I hold tight the memory of my Awakening: '' “Strom”—That is what the cracked window of the ruined temple reflected, the word was etched into a suit of armor’s chest like the signature of a grand maker. Birds were perched by the window and their beady eyes looked down on me with abysmal vacancy.'' I thought I was hurt, bleeding out perhaps. I tried to scream but found myself unable to move or feel my mouth; no cry uttered from my lips. Initially I thought I was dreaming. Where were my muscles, my body? Where am I? I came to command my arms with the thought of movement and the thought of arms. I tried to touch my flesh but instead my hands had clanged on a foreign surface with an awful ring. The birds had flown away at the harsh noise. In the window’s reflection I saw the suit of armor scratching at its chest, rubbing at that carved word that I did not recognize. And slowly, the arms were reaching for the suit’s helmet. I carefully watched the reflection as the armor lifted the visor. Nothing was inside. '' It was then that I understood. I was recalled to life as nothing more and nothing less—a husk of my former self. A metal shell.'' _____________________________ Standing over seven feet tall and composed entirely of blackened mithril, Strom is an animated suit of armor. Under his ebon helm there is no man, no flesh working the hollow shell. There is only the cold metal husk to serve as a vessel for his spirit. Searching for answers and a way to remember, he wanders knowing very little about his past, as he is currently experiencing a growing fading of memory. The first memory of his new form was when he awoke in the ruins of a massive temple. He was lying on the shattered remains of what appeared as a crystal. While many memories have faded, surfaced, and disappeared over the long years, Strom has managed to cling to the moment he deems “The Awakening”. Shortly after “awakening” he was apprehended by Council forces. An entire company of hardened soldiers and mages had expected him. Strom had easily cut down the nearest Council thugs with only his gauntlets and his newfound psionic abilities. He had acted and fought in his new form with shocking familiarity and tenacity. But the warriors were only fodder to buy time for the mages, as before Strom could turn his attention to the magic-wielding Eladrin and Deva, arcane chains had sprouted from the ground to hold him still. The Council troops mocked him as they dragged him away—apparently he had been in their clutches for quite some time before the events of his awakening. Strom tried to remember but his mind only brought up images of war, destruction, and the armor he now called “Strom” bringing men low. They kept him imprisoned in a high-security Council dungeon. And there he brooded with a hunger for vengeance and enlightenment. It took half a century for him to stop yelling for his family. He had lost their names in that dark chasm. It was not until unnumbered years had passed within the deepest pit of Suanataar that Strom had at last been freed of his great solitude. With the aid of his new companions, Strom had begun to resist the domination of the Council; beginning with the destruction of a control rod made specifically for reigning in Strom. Where his search for vengeance and answers will take him he knows not, only that he yearns to know and feel once more the reality he has so long lost.